anxa 
88- B 
31735 


Loan  Exhibition  of 
Paintings  by 

Emil  Carlsen,  N.A. 


December,  1919 


The  Macbeth  Gallery 

450  Fifth  Avenue  New  York 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2018  with  funding  from 
Getty  Research  Institute 


https://archive.org/details/loanexhibitionofOOcarl 


Loan  Exhibition  of 
Paintings  fry 

Emil  Carlsen,  N.A. 

from  the  collection  of 


Robert  Handley,  Esq. 

of  New  York 


December,  1919 


The  Macbeth  Gallery 

450  Fifth  Avenue  New  York 


EMIL  CARLSEN 


Foreword 


THE  inspiration  of  the  craftsmen  of  mediae¬ 
val  Europe  whose  devotion  to  good  work¬ 
manship  proclaimed  the  spirit  of  art 
before  art  itself  was  free,  lives  on  to-day  in  the 
work  of  those  artists  who,  taking  full  advantage 
of  modern  knowledge,  work  painstakingly,  lin¬ 
geringly,  lovingly  over  the  subjects  which  make 
to  them  a  special  appeal,  striving  to  attain  per¬ 
fection  of  their  modern  mediums.  Emil  Carlsen 
is  an  artist  of  this  type.  His  range  is  a  modest 
one  ;  indeed  his  capacity  is  distinctly  limited.  Yet 
his  devotion  to  his  ideal  of  art  is  beautiful  to 
see,  and  to  approach  its  realization  he  labours 
faithfully  and  learns  from  nature  many  a  lesson. 
He  would  not  know  how  to  cultivate  his  ego  nor 
how  to  advertise  his  soul.  It  never  occurs  to 
him  that  out  of  idleness  an  artist  can  create  a 
new  heaven  and  a  new  earth.  The  old  familiar 
world  is  good  enough  for  Carlsen,  and  especially 
the  world  where  congenial  work  is  its  own  re¬ 
ward.  He  loves  the  past  and  its  relics.  Yet,  if 
he  copies  Gothic  saints  in  stone  and  terra  cotta, 
and  dabbles  in  tempera  like  the  Florentines,  it  is 
not  for  the  joy  of  antiquarian  research  but  just 
to  make  out  of  old  effects  some  new  sensations. 
He  has  found  that  the  world  is  full  of  sights  good 
to  look  upon.  He  has  discovered  that  certain 
inanimate  objects  and  certain  aspects  of  nature 
give  him  particular  pleasure.  By  means  of  ex¬ 
periments  and  constant  studies  he  has  come  to 
realize  the  peculiar  characteristics  of  his  own  ob¬ 
servations  and  has  devised  and  gradually  per¬ 
fected  methods  for  recreating  the  pleasures  of  his 
original  impressions. 

Sensible  self-appraisement  to  ascertain  where 
and  why  one  is  strong  and  where  and  why  one  is 
weak  is  as  necessary  to  artists  as  it  is  to  other 


men.  Carlsen  knows  that  he  has  the  patience, 
the  exact  science,  the  subtle  skill  of  the  born 
technician,  and  so  in  skilful  craftsmanship  he 
exults.  Yet  he  does  not  believe  that  he  is  an  artist 
because  of  his  skill  as  a  draftsman  or  because  he 
has  a  distinguished  method  of  laying  on  the 
paint.  Art  is  his  goal.  Craftsmanship  is  only 
the  road  he  must  travel.  He  is  a  craftsman  be¬ 
cause  he  believes  that  before  a  man  can  paint  a 
good  picture  he  must  be  able  to  do  a  good  job. 
Believing  that  practice  makes  perfect  he  neither 
rests  on  his  laurels  nor  attempts  to  try  the  work 
of  other  men.  Like  Chardin,  the  master  who  has 
most  inspired  him,  he  keeps  on  rendering  his  own 
selected  themes,  hoping  each  year  to  add  new 
knowledge  and  a  surer  competency  to  his  hand¬ 
ling.  Because  he  relies  upon  his  labour  alone, 
because  he  has  no  new  theory  to  demonstrate 
but  only  his  own  personal  taste  to  express,  be¬ 
cause  he  seems  to  care  very  little  whether  people 
notice  him  or  not,  the  art  of  Emil  Carlsen  seems 
to  me  to  offer  to  this  age  of  forced  originalities 
and  of  false  pretensions,  genuine  novelty  and  a 
wholesome  example. 

It  is  only  perhaps  as  a  painter  of  “still  life’’ 
that  he  achieves  extraordinary  distinction.  In 
many  pictures,  both  of  the  sea  and  of  the  land, 
both  by  sunlight  and  moonlight,  he  has  shown  a 
power  to  stir  our  emotions  as  only  great  art  can 
do.  However,  it  is  all  too  often  the  same  emo¬ 
tion  and  produced  by  the  same  technique.  We 
never  receive  from  him  the  pleasure  of  surprise, 
the  bracing  reaction  of  shock.  One  may  be  ex¬ 
cused  for  wondering  whether  Carlsen  does  not 
care  more  for  texture  than  for  any  other  quality 
in  painting.  The  open  sea  is  indeed  opaque  and 
Carlsen  gives  us  a  true  version  of  its  lustrous 
surface,  translucent  rather  than  transparent. 
Incidentally  we  cannot  fail  to  note  that  his  water 
has  weight,  but  all  too  seldom  wetness.  In  his 


landscapes,  lie  loves  best  the  hours  when  there 
is  tranquility  of  light  unbroken  by  sharp  transi¬ 
tions  and  sudden  contrasts.  Outside  of  his 
beloved  “still  life”,  such  aspects  of  nature  give 
him  his  best  opportunity  for  displaying  charm  of 
surface — that  charm  which  is  the  one  distinguish¬ 
ing  quality  of  Carlsen,  as  of  Cazin. 

It  was  the  glamour  of  Chardin’s  painting  and 
his  gentle  influence  which  made  young  Carlsen 
turn  to  “still  life”  instead  of  practising  architec¬ 
ture.  At  Copenhagen  he  was  trained  to  be  an 
architect,  and  this  training,  no  doubt,  accounts 
for  the  exact  draftsmanship  which  has  made  him 
such  an  admirable  teacher  of  drawing.  Upon 
arrival  in  this  country,  at  the  age  of  nineteen, 
without  any  schooling  in  the  new  art,  he  set  out 
to  paint  pictures,  resolved  to  learn  as  he  went 
along,  and  to  go  to  school  to  nature  all  his  days. 
There  is  not  much  to  tell  about  the  uneventful 
life  of  this  modern  painter  of  a  great  tradition. 
Enthusiastic  travel,  passionately  keen  observation 
through  those  peering,  appraising,  kindly  eyes  of 
his,  endless  experiments  with  new  mediums,  and 
discoveries  of  new  effects  have  made  for  an  ever- 
increasing  perfection  of  method.  His  early  pic¬ 
tures  were  rather  thin  and  tight,  but  of  a  fine 
tonality  and  sensitively  observed.  In  those  days 
no  one  cared  for  “still  life”  and  he  could  not  sell 
his  canvases.  The  world  might  never  have  known 
his  landscapes  and  “marines”  if  the  struggle  had 
not  become  precarious,  so  that  his  friends  ad¬ 
vised  him  to  abandon  “still  life”  for  more  popu¬ 
lar  subjects.  Only  within  the  last  ten  years  has 
he  come  into  his  own  and  painted  to  an  audience 
of  attentive  and  enthusiastic  connoisseurs,  critics 
and  fellow-painters  who  recognize  the  best  work 
of  its  kind  since  Chardin. 


From  an  appreciation  by  Duncan  Phillips,  Esq.,  in  the  Inter¬ 
national  Studio,  June,  1917. 


1  —  MADONNA  OF  THE  MAGNOLIAS 


3 -LATE  OCTOBER 


5— NIGHT 


7— AFTERNOON  LIGHT 


9— THE  WHITE  JUG 


11 — WOOD  INTERIOR 


H 


E  GUIDECCA 


12— ON  T 


13— BLUE  AND  WHITE  JUG  AND  VASE 


14— WOOD  INTERIOR  NO  2 


15  —  MARINE 


MACBETH  GALLERY 

PAINTINGS 

by 

AMERICAN  ARTISTS 


among  them 

the  following:- 

Betts 

Fuller 

Miller 

Blakelock 

Groll 

Murphy 

Carlsen 

Hassam 

Olinsky 

Carlson 

Hawthorne 

Ranger 

Daingerfield  Henri 

Ryder 

Davis 

Homer 

Sartain 

Dewing 

Howe 

Symons 

Dougherty 

Hunt 

Tryon 

Eaton 

Inness 

Twachtman 

Foster 

Martin 

Weir 

Frieseke 

Melchers 

Wiggins 

Fromkes 

Metcalf 

Wyant 

WILLIAM  MACBETH 

Incorporated 

450  Fifth  Avenue  New  York  City 

At  Fortieth  Street 


GETTY  RESEARCH  INSTITUTE 


3  3125  01643  0908 


